The PR industry sees some extreme highs and lows, and national boutique PR agency The Tonic Communications, which has offices in the North East and East Midlands, give us its advice on how to cope in a crisis and how to manage a key campaign, product or news launch.

In the first of this two part blog, director and co-founder Georgina Dunkley provides her advice on how to stay calm in the face of a media catastrophe.

Preparation and protocol

With any crisis, preparation and planning is always key. Before panic sets in, it is essential that all staff across your business understand what the protocol is when a negative social media posts hits or a journalist calls in seeking comment.

A simple internal briefing document can be created illustrating who should be alerted to the crisis as it happens along with guidelines of how calls and negative enquires need to be handled. This is particularly important for front line staff, whether they be call operatives or customer sales people, as they may be approached and asked for comment when they are not effectively briefed on the subject matter or armed to answer difficult questions aligned with brand key messages.

In these instances, the person should take note of the query and pass it on to the team or person, ordinarily in PR agency or marketing agency, to handle the enquiry.

Manage journalist and customer expectations

As soon as a negative enquiry comes in, it needs to be dealt with swiftly. Whether a disgruntled tweet or a statement request from a journalist, contain the situation by explaining that you are looking into the issue and will soon have an answer for them. Never ignore the situation and hope it will go away and on social channels don’t just simply delete the comment. This has been known to escalate a crisis to new heights! Give them a timeframe when you will be back to them, this may be governed by the media’s deadline, and ensure you meet those agreed timings.

Be fully briefed

If you are the person charged with handling the media crisis, nine times out of 10 you won’t know the full story and what is being done to rectify this problem. Take the time for a full briefing on what’s happened and what’s being done to remedy the situation before making any comments.

Things to avoid

Some companies feel the best way to avoid a conflict is to offer ‘no comment’. In my experience, this isn’t advisable, and unless the situation may become a legal issue, offering a comment provides the opportunity to put forward your side of the story and stops you from conceding all of the blame.

Draft statements and mobilise spokespeople

Now you have a clear idea of the full story, you can go ahead and draft statements for media and social media use and brief key spokespeople on what they need to cover during interviews. Statements should be succinct, accurate and true - so don’t make promises that won’t be kept.

Maintain journalist relations

Although you have forged a journalist relationship from a negative situation, there is no reason why, if you have delivered on all your promises and met the journalist’s demands, that you can’t keep in touch with them regarding positive news. Keep them updated on how the crisis is being resolved and share favourable announcements with them too.